In a meeting with Argentine rural leaders, President Maurício Macri admitted that he will not be able to fulfill his promise of a five percentage point reduction in soybean export taxes either this year or at the beginning of 2017. At the end of last year, the president Argentinean lowered the rate of so-called “retentions” from 35% to 30%, promising to lower it another five percentage points with each harvest.
Threatened with a general strike by trade unions, Macri publicly justified that the fiscal deficit is too high. He explained that he had to give in to pressure from union members to grant a year-end bonus to employees, in addition to large income tax exemptions for salaried employees, reports the AgroSouth News Blog.
According to the president, adding the reduction in retentions to this package would make it impossible to control inflation in the neighboring country, due to Argentina's high fiscal deficit. Macri also stated that he could not serve just one sector of society – in this case, only the rural sector.
Source: Agrolink
